Maya: Lords of Time

January 23, 2016–May 22, 2016

Maya: Lords of Time explores the time-ordered universe through the Maya’s intricate calendar systems and investigates how their history and culture followed a rhythm set by the motion of heavenly bodies.

Learn the story of how divine kings used their control over the calendar and its grand public rituals to assert their power.

With award-winning interactives, numerous full-sized monumental replicas, and many Central American artifacts, visitors can trace the rise and fall of the Maya kingdoms and follow how ideas of time and the calendar changed before and after the Spanish conquest.

This exhibition also explores how those long-standing beliefs can still be found in Mayan regions today.

The grand stucco Margarita Panel, a replica of which is featured in the exhibition, was carved around 450 CE in Copan. Photo courtesy: Early Copan Acropolis Project, Penn Museum.

Organized by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor. Maya: Lords of Time is presented by Home Federal Bank, Ann & Steve Bailey, the William B. Stokely Jr. Foundation, UT’s Ready for the World, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of East Tennessee, and HoLa Hora Latina.